I was ushered out of Headmaster Sivor's office and back to the courtyard, where I found all of my workshop supplies piled neatly.
"You are no longer allowed to access your tree until graduation, so we moved your stuff here. As far as I'm told you have a place to keep them, correct?"
"Yeah, I do." my voice was tired and sad.
I showed them to my shed and started to lazily restock it with my stuff. Orin relentlessly tried to cheer me up by being adorable but to no avail. Losing Spirit this time felt different from last time, it wasn't some undiscovered phenomenon that I could potentially figure out and fix, this time it was something I knew yet could do nothing about. On top of that, this time I wasn't in shock over losing my arm.
"I need a distraction." I couldn't take off my artificial arm without matter manipulation, so it was dead weight.
"I know, I'll make a mechanical brace to move it!" My expression brightened.
Moving back into the shed took a long time because I had completely forgotten Denny for the first half of the task and I only had one arm, before I had moved back in, it was time for detention.
Detention was held in a room attached to the headmaster's office and hosted by Headmaster Sivor himself. I left Denny to finish moving in and Orin to make sure he didn't mess anything up.
"Ingen, good, you've arrived," Headmaster said while writing something on a clipboard
"Yeah yeah, where do I sit?" I still held contempt for the headmaster.
"Over there, next to the bull-horned one."
"Don't be shy, little twig, I don't bite." A third-year with bull horns called out to me.
'Something tells me he does'
With my mind-link cut off from Spirit and Orin, I felt truly isolated for the first time in a long time. Before, when Spirit was recovering, Orin and I rarely left each other's side unless I was working.
I sat down next to "I don't bite" but, as expected, he did bite, literally. I didn't have access to Eneru to defend myself so I was powerless to do anything and I hated it.
"Laura, you're here too? Good, oh and you brought Teo? I have to admit, it is out of character for you to vandalize school property." The headmaster was highly suspicious of the circumstances of Teo and Laura's detention, but continued "Hey! Jenral! Let go of Ingen!"
The bull-horned third year stopped gnawing on my artificial arm.
"As for you two, you sit over there." He pointed at two seats opposite of Jenral from me.
I took a look at the front of the room and noticed that it was a huge mirror. I hadn't ever seen myself before this, only ever hearing about what I looked like from others so I wanted to see for myself.
"Zoom to ten percent," I said under my breath, only for nothing to happen.
'Oh, yeah, those don't work, I can't believe I forgot my Eneru was sealed.'
"Hey, Headmaster! Where do you get off messing with a cripple?!" Laura shouted from her seat, pointing at my limp artificial arm, "He can barely see without those either." she shifted her finger to my glasses, conveniently not mentioning that they work to correct my vision enchantment or not.
"Yeah! How is he supposed to work if he's got one arm!?" Teo added, catching the tone of the conversation.
"Your concerns are valid, albeit disrespectful, however, you don't seem to understand the situation. Ingen's spirit has committed a crime worthy of death, Ingen is getting off lightly to only have his spirit core isolated for five days. If it weren't for my intervention, he would have had his spirit core removed."
Teo and Laura didn't continue to argue with the stalwart headmaster, preferring to look at me with pity and suppress Jenral's urge to bite my arm.
'For some reason, detention is full of crippled people, physically or mentally, Jenral is autistic, there is a kid with a missing leg, and there is me. The only exceptions are Teo and Laura.'
Orin jumped through the open window and laid in my lap.
"Denny is done with the workshop, it's not neat, but not just a pile either."
"Alright, I'll adjust it later." I stroked Orin's fur without thinking.
"Your fur is so soft, have you been playing with Laura again?"
"What? No!" Orin lied.
"It's ok, she's proven to me that she doesn't hate my guts. Why don't we all play together sometime?"
I'm sure if I could still mind-link while under Eneru suppression, I would be given happy thoughts from Orin right now.
"Yay, we can play with Lauri!" When Orin got excited his mannerisms would always revert to his young self.
A frown appeared on Laura's face.
"As if I want to hang out with you! Orin is cute, you are not."
'Liar.'
Orin jumped off my lap and played Laura's game.
"Won't you please let him play with us? It's hard to choose between you two."
Laura thought for a moment "Fine, I'll let him play, but there is no way I'm going to carry his arm around for him."
"Ha! I can't even take it off without access to my Eneru!" I laughed grimly, remembering how annoying it was to carry around, not to mention how uncomfortable it was to let hang.
Eventually, detention ended and I walked up to the mirror in the front of the room.
I had short curly brown hair and my horns were bigger than my head. I had an angular face like my mother and her sharp eyes, but my eyes had the striking blue like my father. I was more muscular than most naturals from Professor Unda's training, but I was not quite as strong as most lightning mages and leagues behind even weak humans, it seems that humans have no limits in this world, they can just keep getting stronger and stronger forever.
"Are you going to come with us or just continue to stare at yourself?"
"I'm coming, I'm coming."